Friday, September 23, 2016

The Voyeur's Motel by Gay Talese

The Voyeur's Motel Hardcover – by Gay Talese

On January 7, 1980, in the run-up to the publication of his landmark bestseller Thy Neighbor’s Wife,
Gay Talese received an anonymous letter from a man in Colorado. “Since
learning of your long awaited study of coast-to-coast sex in America,”
the letter began, “I feel I have important information that I could
contribute to its contents or to contents of a future book.” The man
went on to tell Talese an astonishing secret, that he had bought the Manor House Motel on Colfax Avenue to satisfy his voyeuristic desires. He had built an attic “observation
platform,” fitted with vents, through which he could peer down on his
unwitting guests.

Unsure
what to make of this confession, Talese traveled to Colorado where he
met the man—Gerald Foos—verified his story in person, and read some of
his extensive journals, a secret record of America’s changing social and
sexual mores. But because Foos insisted on remaining anonymous, Talese
filed his reporting away, assuming the story would remain untold. Now,
after thirty-five years, he’s ready to go public and Talese can finally
tell his story. The Voyeur’s Motel is an extraordinary work of narrative journalism, and one of the most talked about books of the year.